A blog about all topics World of Warcrafty, from general game philosophy to raiding to making gold. Maintained by Xandamere of Korgath (US).

Monday, January 3, 2011

Tol Barad changes again, unsurprisingly.

Blizzard appears to have reversed their stance on Tol Barad and nerfed the honor gain for an attack from 1,800 to 360. A quick look around the forums shows that there are all sorts of opinions about this, but what I'm concerned about is how it affects the markets. What I wrote in a previous post about how the Tol Barad changes could be used to make money is now not as relevant, as we won't have huge numbers of players getting 1,800 honor from a win and rushing off to buy, gem, and enchant a piece of PvP gear. So how will these changes play out on the auction house, and how can we use them to make money?

First off, a slower average income of honor means a slower rate of acquiring PvP gear. This means that those PvP gems and enchants I recommended selling immediately after each TB attack won't be selling as fast now, so I hope you made some good money off of them while the fun lasted. I know I did. :) A simple fact of enchanting and jewelcrafting is that demand is heavily influenced by the average rate of gear acquisition. When it goes up, demand goes up, so you should be ready to sell more. When it goes down, demand goes down, so you can cut back (but not stop!) supplying these markets.

The benefit to the change is that the crafted PvP pieces (the ilevel 339 gear like Bloodied Pyrium, Emberfire, etc.) will become more attractive again. When people could get 1,800 honor per TB win, there was no point in spending money to buy crafted gear that would be outdated within a day or two. But with this new change, people will be getting honor at a slower rate, and thus the crafted gear looks more attractive. The majority of players will not have completed their PvP sets in the brief time that Tol Barad gave 1,800 honor, and to remain competitive, they'll be wanting to upgrade their PvP gear. This is a good time to get back into those markets. Check out my previous post about making gold with crafted pvp gear for more information about how to work these markets, and remember to watch out for the pieces that people are leveling tradeskills with!

The big point of all of this is what I keep harping on: the markets are volatile right now. Being quick to adapt is the best way to make money. Not only are the markets changing on their own as players progress through Cataclysm, but Blizzard has been making (and will likely continue to make) fairly quick changes as they balance their new expansion. All of these changes have impacts on the gold markets, so stay up to date on the news and always be thinking about how a change will affect what players want to buy.